Sources

found: Dictionary of African Biography, accessed November 14, 2014, via Oxford African American Studies Center database:(Andrianampoinimerina; king, legendary figure; born c.1750 in Ikaloy, Madagascar; presented himself as a defender of ordinary commoners; slaves and some aristocrats joined his move to depose Andrianjafy (1787); as king, he offered his subjects a more centralized form of government; one of his more successful efforts was to promote a common Merina identity among his different subjects; tried to monopolize and regulate foreign trade in slaves and other items; intervened regularly in local affairs on behalf of commoners against officials and nobles, which increased his popularity as a "people's king"; presented himself as the chief intermediary between the spirit world of ancestors and that of the living; died 1810 in Madagascar)